The world was white.

At first sight, Lukas thought his mind was playing tricks on him. Not surprising, given his injuries. Instead, the pain was surprisingly missing; his mind was clear and his senses perfectly normal. A quick check with the Screen told him that he still had access to everything and was not trapped in another memory.

His legs had sunk into deep, wet snow, the zombie-white wilderness feeling way too real to be anything else. There was no wind, nothing except the snow and an eerie, entombed silence. Trusting his luck, he used Gravity Control to lift himself up — only by a foot just to check if he was truly fine. Gravity Control was absorbed into his kinetomancy, and if he was able to perform it properly then—

Lukas exhaled.

This place isn’t real.

WARNING!

Extreme Physiological damage to the Host Body.

All skills suspended until 90% recovery

Current Prophylaxis Status : 47%

Definitely not real then.

He soared further up, until he could see stripes; as if someone had painted the snow with three striations of silver paint. Lukas squinted his eyes and dropped slightly, and realized that the stripes were in fact, deep troughs, each over thirty yards wide, filled with water and frozen into broad, silvery channels that stretched parallel to this frozen wasteland.

But what was this place?

“You!”

His body went ramrod stiff, and before Lukas knew it, he was hanging, suspended in midair, his arms and legs stretched into an X-shape, his muscles and ligaments at their breaking point. He tried to scream, but he couldn’t. A slow, gargling moan was the best he could suffice.

“Why does this not surprise me?” The voice made his body thrum in response. “I should’ve known you’d follow her here, Warden.”

And then Tanya entered his vision. All pretense of humanity had vanished from her features, leaving a bloodthirsty grin and widened eyes that stared at him in hunger and madness. Lukas wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry for that inhuman facade was not remotely the most disturbing thing about her.

To his senses, Tanya appeared like a void. In space.

She was hollow, as in physically hollow, nothing but bremetan skin draped around a void. He could sense nothing inside her, not organs, not her heart, or her brain or lungs, or even air or mana or space. There was literally nothing there. It was as if someone had scooped everything out of her and forgotten to replace it with anything else, leaving a hollowed out creature with an emptiness within. An emptiness so pronounced that it felt like it was where Reality itself ended, a void where nothing existed, not even space.

“You knew what she was; what she will become.”

Her fingertips grazed over his chest and ribs, now devoid of his shirt, and he suppressed a shudder.

“You sealed me away, and tried to destroy my throne.”

Her throne? Didn’t that mean—

She leaned in closer to his face, and touched his lips. “Tell me, my Warden,” she breathed, “how would you like being tortured for eternity?”

His mouth was shut. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t— No. He told himself. This world wasn’t real. If it was, he’d be suffering from a brain aneurysm or five. If this had been real, he’d be back in that room. No, this was in his mind and he’d be damned if he let this has-been’s psionic whammy fuck up with his mind.

This world wasn’t real. This pain wasn’t real. This Tanya wasn’t real. This was a psionic assault, and he had spent the better part of two months with a goddess renting up his brain. This? This was nothing compared to her.

He focused on the words first. Damned near everything began with words. His mouth was sealed, but he spoke anyway.

“Sorry,” he said, “I’m booked for this week. Why don’t you come back next week and check?”

“You…”

“Suck,” Lukas threw at her, sneering. His hands went free, and he somersaulted mid-air, facing her head-on. The air around him cracked with a sound like a cannon’s blast, and Tanya flew backwards until she was at arm’s length, the reality around them cracking like a shattered glass pane.

The yokai loved their psionic whammies and possession power plays. That was fine. If it was a battle of the mind, so be it.

“I’d say that was quite the show,” said Lukas, “but bondage isn’t really one of my kinks. Maybe it’s ‘cause of the long day or maybe I’m just tired, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to be back, with Tanya, the original one, not you fake, with me.”

“You are allowing your mortality to make you impatient, Outsider. Surely you want to take this opportunity to look around?”

“No,” He deadpanned. “I’ve got better things to do than hang around egotistical super-yokai. It just isn’t my idea of a good time.”

She laughed, and it was full of cobwebs and sandpaper. “It’s easy to forget how young and insouciant you are, Outsider.”

“You know what they say. You learn something new every day. Now let me and Tanya out, and things don’t have to be nasty between us.”

She laughed harder, and the sound of it spooked the hell out of him. Maybe it was the alienness of the surroundings, or something about it, the way that it simply lacked anything to do with things that should motivate laughter. There was no humanity, no kindness, no joy, no nothing—- just an empty void with bremetan skin stitched around itself and calling itself Tanya.

They had a term for this in psychology. The Uncanny Valley. It held that when something looked almost similar to a human being — a robot or a mannequin — it generated an innate revulsion in the eyes of the observer, because its appearance was so close to human, yet just off enough to evoke a feeling of uncanniness, a mix of both familiarity and unease.

Lukas had felt it when he had looked at Haviskali for the first time. But the feeling hadn’t been half as strong as it was now.

“Is that what you think will happen?” She asked.

“Oh no, not at all. I was just trying to be considerate about your feelings.”

Current Prophylaxis Status : 53%

Good, but not fast enough.

“But I suppose I could afford to be a bit chatty. Just between us, you aren’t really supposed to be out, are you? You know, what with being sealed away and everything.”

“Oh, I still am sealed away, Outsider,” said the creature. “But not for long. For you will free me.”

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“Will I now?”

“Yes.”

Her confidence made him wary. Something in her manner had changed, and it was setting off alarm bells in his head.

“And why must I do so?”

“Because if you do not, the existence you call Tanya will be lost to you forever. And you and only you shall be to blame for it.”

Folding his arms, he demanded. “Why?”

Her eyes glinted. “Because if you don’t, then the Empress Meynte will take over her mind and soul forever, and there’ll be nothing, nothing you can do to bring her back.”

…

…

He’d be lying if he said that her response hadn’t ruffled her. There was no way of knowing if she was bluffing or this, like earlier, was another trap. Solana had already gotten Tanya to do what she wanted, and despite what happened after, Tanya was still sitting on the throne, while her other self was being chatty with him.

Go figure.

“And I’m supposed to take your word for it?”

“Of course not,” she said without the slightest inflection to her tone. “You sealed me and made me suffer in silence for all this time. Not since the dawn of Time have I been subjected to such treatment. It was almost… refreshing. Feel free to not believe me. The future is being written as we speak.”

He looked at her warily. “Tell me what’s going on. Meynte— she’s supposed to be dead. Even Solana said so. Then—”

Her lips stretched into a thin smile. “Solana. The dear little thing. So sure, so confident, so… foolish.”

“I don’t have time for your idle chit-chat.”

“Mortal life is fleeting, Outsider. If you insist on keeping yours, you ought to enjoy it.”

“I’m not taking life lessons from someone that tried to bleach my brain.”

“It’s hardly my fault I cannot take no for an answer.” She tilted her head, her cataract eyes steadying on him. “Let us embrace brevity then. A bargain, if you will. I will grant you the answers you seek. In return, you shall do one task for me.”

What was with these ancient entities bargaining with him? First Inanna, then Solana and now—

Current Prophylaxis Status : 61%

Was it him or was the process speeding up? Either way, it still wasn’t enough. He needed more time, which also meant that his chances of getting Tanya back were worsening.

Damn it.

“One thing,” he focused on her choice of words. “You mean let you free.”

“Oh no,” She smiled, her white teeth showing. “You will do that anyway. I have seen your heart, Outsider, and I know what you are. It is in your nature.”

Lukas gave himself a second to wish he had been less exhausted by the day’s events. The stunt Solana pulled over him had already left him second-guessing himself, and certainly not in a world-class negotiating condition. A part of him told him that no matter how much he tried, these ancient beings would always one-up him. Inanna always did.

At the same time, he knew he needed answers. Solana had her agenda, and for all he knew, she had accomplished it. But something in Tan— in Frost’s voice told him that after all this was done, Solana would be up for a nasty surprise. But one thing he knew for certain — if he didn’t act now, he could potentially lose Tanya forever. There was a chance that all of this was just another ploy by these crafty yokai to undo the binding Inanna had done, but better to act and be mistaken, than not to act and lose Tanya forever.

“What kind of task?” He demanded. “I swear if it’s something stupid like—”

“Fear not, Outsider. What I seek is difficult, dangerous, calamitous even, but not unreasonable.”

One task.” She repeated, closing her eyes, a feline smile upon her lips. “You will know of it when it is time. After all, I shall be free before the night is over.” She opened her eyes, and cocked her head in his direction. “Do we have a bargain?”

Lukas clenched his fists. “Yes. Yes we do.”

“Good. Yes.” She purred. “Ask, Outsider. What is it you wish to know?”

“What is going on?” He demanded, cutting to the heart of the question. “What is Meynte, dead or alive, up to with Tanya? What is that throne’s deal? Solana called Tanya Tsurara, so…”

The rest of his words died in his throat as she pushed a thin, frail finger against her lips. The touch sent a zing of sensation down his spine and through his belly. Her skin felt like frosted metal, as she approached him, stepping into his personal space. A slow smile spread over her mouth. “So many questions you have, Outsider. But all of them, worthless.”

He narrowed his eyes and began, “Not—”

“Worthless. Absolutely worthless.”

He pulled away from her, gave her a glare and said. “Then why don’t you tell me what’s worthwhile?”

She folded her arms, her smile widening. “Accepting one’s shortcomings is a rare attribute, Outsider.”

“So is not wasting time, so get on with it.”

“Your insouciance is amusing,” she said, laughter in her voice. “Tell me, Outsider, do you know what an Empress is?”

The answer leapt to his lips. “One that has Ascended, gained a Truth. A Path forger, who has traveled the road that didn’t exist to open the door that isn’t there.”

While outwardly cool and collected, Lukas himself was rather perturbed with what he had just said. He wasn’t supposed to know that. No one had ever mentioned it. Nowhere in Inanna’s moments of nostalgia, Kvasir’s ramblings, or his talks with Tanya— nowhere had he learned anything about what made an Emperor. Or Empress for that matter. Certainly not about Path forgers.

Yet the information had come to him as if he had always known it. Not just that, he knew, in vivid detail, just what it meant to gain a Truth, and why despite reaching the highest echelons of Kinetomancy, Inanna had never ascended with it as her Truth. How he knew that — well, there was only one conclusion.

Inanna’s divinity. She… she might have given me a lot more than I had thought.

As he reeled from the sudden knowledge he didn’t know existed in his head, something odd stuck out to him. Lukas crossed his arms, and said. “This… this makes no sense.”

“What does?”

“All of this. Solana had said that Meynte, Queen of the End, became the Empress through Everfrost. Fimbulwinter. Meynte, who perished during the war with goddess Amaterasu. And yet, Tanya has Everfrost. Solana said that Tsurara, and all of Meynte’s descendants, all of them had Everfrost. That— that doesn’t even make sense!”

Frost tilted her head. “Oh? And why is that?”

“Because that’s not how Truths behave, damn it.”

“Oh?” She purred. “And pray tell, how do Truths behave?”

Lukas was aware of the irony of his situation. Frost— or whatever she was, was an entity crafted purely out of Everfrost manifesting within Tanya. And he was standing, in a territory crafted out of Everfrost, telling her that her existence was an impossibility.

He closed his eyes and thought on the subject. Once more, the answer came to him unbidden.

His lips spoke.

“A Truth is a Rule. One that adds to the World. Like Everfrost — the end of Potential. Like Eternal Light. Like… Depredation. Whenever a new Truth arises, the Rule is added to the World System. That which did not exist before, now does.”

The more he spoke about it, the more sense it made to him. In simple terms, it was like adding a new program that changes the tenets of an existing operating system, a new fundamental law to the rulebook, or a new chess piece that did not exist. Something that did not exist before, and now, because it suddenly did, the entire setup needed to alter itself to assimilate the results of said change.

Like Eternal Light. An illumination that cast no shadow, and radiated no heat. An illumination without a source that existed everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And with its addition, the concept of night was erased from existence, leaving behind just a period of day where the sky went dark.

Just like a virus, a Truth twisted the natural state of the world by integrating itself to it. And unlike a human body where the immune system acted against the invader, the World System integrated it and happily altered itself to accept its modifications. It was such an alien and twisted concept and at the same time, felt utterly natural to him.

Again, how he knew it, he had no idea. He just did.

He opened his eyes. “A God etches his or her Truth upon the Origin. An Emperor anchors it within himself, or herself in this case. Even though Meynte lived in this world, she followed a different Rule, one that superseded the Rules of the World. And after her demise, the Truth was assimilated into the World System.”

Frost eyed him. After a long moment, she murmured. “And yet, I exist.”

“Yes!” Lukas all but snarled. “You exist. Everfrost exists. Not as a Rule, but as something that only Tanya can do. It’s not a bloody skill, or a relic. A Truth does not pass down blood. For fuck’s sake, yokai are incorporeal. They don’t even reproduce like bremetans do.”

His fists were digging into his skin. The more he stared at this walking-talking contradiction, the more the urge to break something grew within. He didn’t know if it was the anomaly in him, or Inanna’s divinity that was reacting to this… wrongness, but it was making him enraged.

Current Prophylaxis Status : 77%

Not! Fast! Enough!

“And thus, we arrive at the fundamental question. Don’t we?” asked Frost.

“Yes,” Lukas said, glaring at her. “The right question is, what are you?”